Keith Elliot Greenberg needs no introduction and yet I seem to be embarking on one. This is a man who has written so regularly and eloquently on wrestling for WWF Magazine, The Village Voice, Maxim and many others. He’s an author too, with books on John Lennon’s murder, the cult of the death of James Dean and an unpublished book about the Iron Sheik which many wish was available.
And so there can be no one better to write about the WWF-defining WrestleMania III with the much-disputed huge attendance figure (yes, he does cover the stories). To just write about that event with authority and love would be welcome and a bit special. Greenberg gives you more. Much more.
One of the fantastic things about ‘Bigger, Better, Badder!’ is the way Mr G pushes and pulls the focus. He focuses in great detail on the matches, writing beautifully about the ballet between the ropes, or the way that Alice Cooper couldn’t breathe because of ‘too much rush’ from the expectation, event and crowd.
But then we get a pull out to a mid shot as he explains the way the way the extraordinary main event, Hogan v Andre The Giant, came about – I remember this, the insidious effect of brilliant Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan who became his manager, the feeling that Hogan was upset because he was losing a friend, but more likely because if any could beat him…well, it would be Andre Roussimoff.
But in this mid-shot magic, Greenberg takes us backstage, not pulling the curtain back, telling us how the people who came on board with the WWF around this time, and there were a lot, were pitched into a growing business which was not really growing as fast as Vincent Kennedy McMahon wanted it to. McMahon comes across as someone who is not satisfied, not necessarily a maverick but a risk taker who nevertheless always had a plan, there isn’t any of the breathless all-or-nothing feel and no prurience either.
What is here is a sense of the challenge of filling a huge stadium, of making things work with little experience of how it might have worked, no plan to follow, this just hadn’t been tried before. The sheer unmapped nature of WrestleMania III and the WWF push into new territories and eras is something writers and commentators don’t often cover and it’s beautifully covered by Greenberg, who simply presents it, lets the extraordinary story speak for itself, it doesn’t need embellishment.
He also gives Cyndi Lauper her true worth in the WWF story. It seems to me that Vince has always wanted, even craved, entertainment legitimacy for the WWF and never quite found it, even in the heady days of the XFL. He never quite found it better than in the Rock N’ Wrestling Connection the mid ‘80’s and there was no way this could have worked without a legitimate music star giving wrestling…erm, legitimacy. Lauper was a chart artist who had Cpt. Lou Albano, heel and face manager of the time, in her video for ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ – he was her dad asking her ‘what you gonna do with your life’ – and her proactive work with the WWF certainly helped them to get over.
This close and mid shot treatment from Greenberg is great on its own, but there’s more. The long shot. This book isn’t just about WrestleMania III, not with this author’s extensive knowledge and experience.
We’re taken through the NWA and Independent scene, not in depth, but at the time that Vincent K was looking to supercede that shaky alliance, and so we have the Georgia Championship Wrestling when fans tuned in to see Vince playing WWF matches, those deals and despair, the arrogance and internal attacks.
And the passionate, informative but never breathless way this book is written makes or so good to spend time with. An essential book about WMIII? Absolutely. A fabulously informative time? Definitely. A great read? From beginning to end.